Update: Clinton camp denies issuing photo.
Now this is low. Worse than Healy’s “scary” garage advertisement against Patrick.
The article and photo that the Clinton camp distributed is here: http://www.politico.com/news/s…
Obama slams smear photo
By: Mike Allen
February 25, 2008 11:42 AM EST
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of “shameful offensive fear-mongering” by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.
Plouffe was reacting to a banner headline on the Drudge Report saying that aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) had e-mailed a photo calling attention to the African roots of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
“The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat front-runner dressed as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya,” the Drudge Report said. The photo created huge buzz in political circles and immediately became known as “the ‘dressed’ photo,” reflecting the Drudge terminology.
Plouffe said in a statement: “On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world,” said Plouffe.
The Clinton campaign issued an official response to the growing tempest – but the statement from campaign manager Maggie Williams did not respond to the central question of whether staffers circulated the photo.
“Enough,” Williams said in the statement. “If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.
“This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry. We will not be distracted.”
TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company
So will you delete the article, or at least change the headline to something more accurate, such as “hyper-partisan Obama supporters accuse Clinton of resorting to racism/fearmongering…again”?
<
p>One line above an entire article of known slander isn’t balance.
But whaaaat? You won’t? Shocker!!!
I have had it with Obama supporters and members of his campaign calling Hillary Clinton’s campagin racist based on the Obama campaign spin. The headline on this post is outrageous, as was the Obama campaign’s spin about the picture yesterday. The Obama campaign did it before the South Carolina primary so he would win there, and they did it yesterday to take the attention away from a major foreign policy speech by Hillary Clinton. Enough is enough.
This incident has cast Obama in a very poor light. His reactions seem to be impulsive, rather than based on any judgment, which is very disconcerting.